Successful Application of Vigor Inclinometers in Wind Turbine Health Monitoring in China

Wind energy is a clean and pollution-free renewable energy source that has long been used by people, mainly through windmills to pump water, grind flour, etc. now people are interested in how to use wind to generate electricity. The use of wind power is very environmental-friendly, and the wind energy is huge, so it is increasingly valued by countries all over the world.

Summary of Wind Turbine Accidents and Incidents Data to 31 December 2018 in UK

As the report of Caithness Windfarm Information Forum shows, increasing wind turbines are built year by year, and more wind turbine accidents occur. "Numbers of recorded accidents reflect this, with an average of 44 accidents per year from 1999-2003 inclusive; 94 accidents per year from 2004-2008 inclusive; 153 accidents per year from 2009-2013 inclusive, and 169 accidents per year from 2014-2018 inclusive."

Great Necessity of Monitoring Wind Turbine Health in Real Time

The wind power industry is currently in a stage of rapid development, and its role in optimizing energy structure, promoting energy conservation and emission reduction is increasingly prominent. Wind turbines are mostly installed in wind-rich areas and the climatic conditions in these areas are harsh, moreover, the wind turbine is subjected to irregular wind and variable-speed wind loads, so the fan blades and gear boxes are extremely vulnerable to damage and failure, resulting in economic losses.

As a report shows, the cost of a single wind turbine is several million (CNY), and even some offshore wind turbines have been invested more than 100 million (CNY). Based on such huge investment risks and equipment safety management responsibility, we should be more concerned about the safety of wind turbine equipment, especially the safety of wind tower body, because the entire wind turbine will be destroyed if the problem of tower body occurs.

Successful Application of Vigor SST400 and SST810 Inclinometers in Wind Turbine Monitoring in China

In recent years, China's new energy strategy began to focus on the development of wind power. According to the Chinese national planning shows, the installed capacity of wind power in China will reach 20 million to 30 million kilowatts in the next 15 years. As there is a huge potential market of wind turbine monitoring, so Vigor Technology has developed a special SST810 for dynamic monitoring of wind turbine gear box. SST810 gyro Inclinometer is developed with advanced inertial navigation technology for measuring the dynamic roll and pitch angles of the carrier. Comparing with similar products on the global market, this special SST810 has remarkable measuring performance with unrivalled long-term stability and dynamic monitoring accuracy.

In 2018, one of the Chinese famous renewable energy corporations and Vigor Technology has established long-term partnership, and Vigor Technology has been chosen as the inclinometer supplier for its renewable energy projects. After 3 months of field debugging and continuous product optimization, Vigor Technology SST8810 dynamic inclinometer and SST400 high accuracy inclinometer have been successfully applied on the wind farms in Zhejiang Province and Hunan Province for wind turbine safety intelligent monitoring. Up to now, about 100 sets of SST810 have been successfully installed on the wind tower top for monitoring the roll and pitch angles of gear boxes, and 115 sets of SST460 inclinometers have been installed on the wind tower foot for monitoring the long-term verticality of tower body.

As a professional and industry-leading inclinometer manufacturer, Vigor Technology provides various kinds of inclinometers which can be used in different fields such as smart excavators, tower cranes, UAV, bridge construction machinery and bridge safety monitoring and etc. If you want to learn more details about the great uses of Vigor inclinometers in wind energy industry, please visit the linked page.